An afternoon in Olde Towne Portsmouth

As I mentioned earlier in the week, on Sunday, J., Baby A., and I took the ferry to Portsmouth. We had no particular plans of places to go or things to do. The wonderful museum district was right there, but because of the Redskins game later in the day, we didn't dare do anything too time-consuming that might prevent us from being back home in time for kickoff.

So we just walked for a bit. And ended up discovering some interesting little features about the city that we'd never known about before. In case you ever find yourself in a similar predicament, I give you a recap of our impromptu mini-walking tour of Historic Portsmouth, VA. Here are some of the things we saw and enjoyed.

-The seawall

The Portsmouth seawall stretches along the riverfront and walking it gives a wonderful view of the boats going past. Just on our way between the High Street and North Landings, we saw a couple of tugs (who sounded their horns obligingly -- is there anything more satisfying than the reverberating sound of a tugboat horn on a cloudy day?), a container ship, and a few beautifully painted yachts. Baby A. had a blast waving at them and added the word "boat" to her expanding vocabulary.

-Hog Island Lighthouse Lens

The Hog Island lens stood in a lighthouse on Hog Island (one of the Virginia barrier islands) until the island finally eroded away in the 1940s. Now the lens lives at the Portsmouth waterfront, just by the High Street ferry landing. The lens, dating from 1898, is cut through with tons of prisms, and huge, towering over even James, who towers over me and A. It was fun to walk around the glass pavilion and try and count all of the rainbows (hundreds and thousands of them. We didn't stand a chance).

-Trinity Church

Trinity Church was founded in 1761, served as a British garrison in the Revolutionary War, founded the Children's Hospital of the Kings Daughters in the 1890s, and features several beautiful Tiffany windows. It surrounds a gorgeous courtyard, and next to it is a really gloomily spooky old graveyard. Have I mentioned that one of my favorite things is to walk through graveyards and read the old names? My fingers itched for my grave-rubbing supplies.

-The Pass House

Currently, it's a photography studio, but from 1862-1864, the unassuming brick row house at the corners of Crawford and London Streets was a Union Army headquarters. To go outside the city, or across the river to Norfolk, you needed a pass, which you had to get at (you guessed it) the Pass House. We peeked over the gate and saw the door to the old pass office, and we also saw some really beautiful roses blooming by the fence. (We love January roses. Thanks, global warming!)

-Confederate Monument

It's a little unsettling to see the monument 'to our Confederate dead' standing so imposingly at the intersection of Court and High Streets (at least it was for me). From a purely objective standpoint, the monument is finely done, the carving of the soldiers who stand sentry on the four sides of the tall obelisk are super convincing, at least to a toddler -- Anouk kept pointing to them and calling, "Hi! Hi!" It was an experience to see it -- it made me mindful -- but all the same, it's one I'm glad I don't have to have every day.

-The Lightship Portsmouth Museum

The Lightship Portsmouth was built in 1915, kind of a traveling lighthouse used to help ships enter harbor at night. She was retired after almost 50 years of service, and now she's a museum featuring artifacts, photographs, old uniforms, and fitted out seaman's quarters (NONE of which we got to see because the museum itself was closed the day we went -- boo!) But we did get to explore the outside of the ship and pronounced it awesome.

Bonus attractions: The areas next to the High Street and North ferry landings, respectively, feature a red post-box and telephone booth donated by the city of Portsmouth in England. The telephone booth has an actual working pay phone in it, which is notable in and of itself. Definitely something to show the kids. A phone with a cord!

A dial tone! How quaint!

I hope you have enjoyed this brief collection all of the random things we happened to see as we moseyed along Olde Towne (those 'e's are driving me nuts!) Portsmouth. We sure did! I always make James stop when we see one of those old bronze historical marker signs so I can read it and on Sunday I read a dozen to my hearts' content. Hooray!

If you are wondering exactly what route we walked and are interested in recreating it, according to this map, we went up High Street to turn right on Dinwiddie, then right again on London Street all the way back to the ferry landing. Or you could just let the professionals take the lead.